Thing 19 Web 2.0 Awards: Livemocha!

Thing 19 was just plain fun and several of these Web 2.0 winners have potential in the schools.  In order to weed out and prioritize, I decided to focus on tools that were free, tools that were new to me, and tools that I needed. Every  Web 2.0 tool I played with had me convinced that I had found nirvana--until I moved on to the next item. In the end it was either .docstoc or Livemocha, both of which I could use at school and at home, but my final vote went to Livemocha.  In the spirit of globalization and online learning, Livemocha has developed a self paced resource to build reading, listening, speaking and writing skills in your choice of several languages. You must be over 13 to register, and at registration, you indicate your native language, and then the language you wish to learn, one being Japanese. We sure could have used Livemocha this year with a student who only spoke Japanese!   I have registered and fully intend to dust off my Spanish and French!